Friday, October 07, 2011

A few months ago my husband was diagnosed with serious rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. It's been a dance of getting approvals and forms faxed and more forms faxed and then the wrong pharmacy was contacted and then forms had to be refaxed.

It'd be funny except as we've waited these months, his pain has gotten worse and the amount of suffering he's gone though has increased dramatically. Finally he got through to someone and they hooked him up with samples of this drug which would be 1500 bucks a shot if we had no insurance.

Yesterday while on the phone with me he injected his first shot. We sat and talked to wait to see if anything bad would happen after he did it. It's got these nasty side effects. One of them is referred to as "death" and another one they call "cancer". But when you can't move and your pain is crippling, you face those risks and hit the plunger.

It's supposed to make an amazing difference in his life. It already has.

He doesn't know it yet but I do.

For the past 14 years this man has crawled into bed next to me and slept fitfully. Snoring, tossing, startling himself awake sometimes moaning in pain in his sleep. Sometimes waking up in pain.

I woke up at 6am, to the most gentle breathing I'd ever heard from him. I leaned over to make sure he was ok, and realize he wasn't just ok. He was sleeping.

Peacefully. Without pain, without snoring and without constantly turning to change what aches and hurts.

It gave me hope in the dark morning hours. If it didn't do anything else, giving him restful peaceful sleep would be like a miracle.